


Broken Toy

by Randstrom



Category: Gabriel DropOut (Anime)
Genre: Angels, Angst, Bullying, Demons, Depression, Financial Issues, Frenemies, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24610381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randstrom/pseuds/Randstrom
Summary: While visiting her apartment, Raphiel steals Satania's diary on impulse. What she finds inside isn't quite what she was expecting, though.
Relationships: Kurumizawa Satanichia McDowell/Shiraha Raphiel Ainsworth, Tsukinose Vignette April/Shirahara Raphiel Ainsworth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	Broken Toy

**Author's Note:**

> I am an anime-only plebeian, sorry if something similar to this situation (or which debunks this kind of situation) exists in the manga, it's just an idea I had after binging the series. I hope you enjoy!

Raph looked down at the diary in her hands as she sat on a bench outside the public library. She almost regretted taking it. But Satania had left it out in the open on her desk, and Raphiel just couldn't stop herself from swiping it before she left the red-haired girl's apartment.

This wasn't her usual style- low-level bullying like sharing the photocopied contents of the diary with Satania's classmates wouldn't be all that fun. She'd have to come up with some kind of trick that would get the demon to reveal it herself in the process of winning it back. Creating situations for Satania to embarrass herself tickled Raphiel in a way that never seemed to get old, even now, halfway through their second school year together. With a shrug, she plopped the book back into her bag, and resolved to brainstorm later. 

Soon after, she saw Vigne approaching, and checked her phone to see that it was not a minute before or after the time they'd agreed to meet. "Hi Raphi," came a chipper greeting from the black-haired demon. "Thanks for meeting me for this!"

"Of course, Vigne-san. I'm sure this will benefit both of us."

Together, they entered the building and found a small table in a corner where they could chat quietly as they worked without bothering the other patrons. They had met to swap notes on their common school subjects, in order to fill gaps in their own understanding and prepare for the imminent midterm exams.

As Vigne compared Raph's calculus notes to her own, she spoke up.

"Has Satania seemed different to you lately?"

Raph thought for a moment before replying, "No, she's been just as entertaining as ever. Why do you ask?"

"Hmm." The black-haired demon looked down at the floor beside her, before meeting Raph's eyes once again. "She's hardly been talking to me or Gab-chan the past two days. She just stays at her own desk and stares out the window."

That was odd- Satanichia had been the same bombastic, chuunibiyou-stricken fool as ever when Raphiel stopped by her apartment earlier.

"Strange, she's been acting like herself around me…" Raph unzipped her bag, pulling out the diary. "Let's see if something's bothering her!"

Vigne stared at the angel in disbelief as she revealed and cracked open the book. The page she landed on was dated several months ago, and seemed to be the usual  _ 'how dare they mock the future queen of hell' _ type nonsense. It must have been from one of the countless times the girl had done something embarrassing at school. Just as many of these occasions were helped along by Raphiel as were not. Flipping through the pages, she found the journal entries weren't daily, but they were fairly frequent. Further along, she noticed an entry from a few months ago, where Satania adamantly rationalized that it was a good thing a certain boy had seen her make a fool of herself, because he had been distracting her from spreading her influence over the human world. 

"Hmm, it looks like she might have had an unrequited crush," Raph commented with a smile.

Vigne groaned, cradling her head in her hands. "This is too far, even for you, Raphi."

"Do you think so?" She replied in a cheery, flippant tone. 

Undeterred, Raph flipped further forward, and found an entry from just a week ago. "Ooh, this one looks different, and it's recent." 

Clearing her throat, she softly read aloud,  _ "Dear journal, I don't know how much longer I can keep up this persona. It used to be so easy to lose myself in the ‘overconfident archdemon’ character, but that's getting harder and harder. I have no idea how mother and father have been able to keep it up for so long. Do you think my friends will still put up with me if I act like myself? I've always been obnoxious with them, but obnoxious is better than miserable and depressing, right? Isn't being just tolerated better than being pitied?" _

Raph swallowed. This was  _ not _ going the direction she’d thought it would. Vigne stared blankly at the table, mentally processing what she had just heard. 

The next entry was from just a few days ago. Raphiel read it aloud once more.  _ "Dear journal, does she think I don't know? I get that it's fun to see someone who acts like me get humiliated, but it's like she thinks I don't realize. I know that I'm gullible. I know that I'm not very smart. I know that I'm a failure of a demon from a family of failures. So why does she have to remind me so often? It feels like I'm going to crack in front of them any day now. I'm scared." _

Raph's heart sank into the pit of her stomach. She couldn't muster any kind of smile to mask this deep uneasiness. The entry must have been from the other day, when she had...  _ helped _ Satania get herself forcibly removed from the mall by security guards...

Vigne, across the table, looked like she might be sick, with any color long gone from her face. "I… I figured those things always hurt her a little more than she let on, but… this is so much worse than I imagined."

Turning the page, Raphiel arrived at the most recent entry, dated from that day. Satania must have written it in the morning, before Raph arrived at the apartment. This time at a whisper, she narrated,  _ "Dear journal, I don't think I can do it anymore. I just want to leave. I thought maybe I could go home and help with the bakery or something, but since I'm living off the stipend from the school, moving back would actually make things harder for my family. I'm not good enough with bakery work to make up for the cost of supporting me, and they’re barely eeking by as it is. I feel so useless and lost. I hate myself so much. Where can I go?" _

Now Raphiel was starting to feel ill. She could see tears perched on the corners of her companion's eyes— for a demon, Vigne was quite the empath. "Sh-should we… check on her?" she asked.

"Hmm… Let me use clairvoyance real quick…" Raph responded. Closing her eyes and gathering her holy magic, she focused her thoughts on Satania and brought the red-haired girl into view. The apartment, neat and tidy when she'd visited earlier, was now a complete mess. The drawers of Satania's desk were left open, their contents strewn about, and her school bag had been dumped out onto the floor. All of her storage bins were in a similar state. The demon herself was curled up on her bed, weeping and clinging to her dog as he licked her face. She must have torn the place apart looking for the diary.

A wave of nausea travelled through Raphiel’s body.

She'd made a mistake.

She'd broken her toy.

She'd broken  _ a person _ .

Raph's eyes stung as she brought her vision back to the room before her, but it wasn't a result of the remote viewing spell. For the first time in ages, she felt  _ guilty.  _ She'd let herself get carried away, and seriously hurt someone.

"Well?" Vigne prompted.

"...It's not good…" she awkwardly replied. "I think I need to stop messing with her for a while."

"You think?!?" came a scornfully sarcastic reply.

"Sorry for cutting our study session short, Vigne-san, but I think I need to go return this and apologize," Raph explained, gesturing towards the diary in her hand and gathering her things.

"That's a good idea," replied the black-haired demon. “You have a lot to apologize for.”

Soon, Raphiel was on her way back to Satania's apartment, and she spied a convenience store. She slipped inside, walking straight to the aisle where they kept melon bread, and grabbing as much as she could carry before approaching the counter.

She sighed as she paid for the sweet buns and exited the corner store. A long awkward conversation was on the horizon, for which she'd have to break her character as much as Satania had in those journal entries, but it was necessary. She had to make this right.


End file.
